Sacred Heart

History

A chapel for Catholics was built in 1787 beside the Protestant church of St Mary in Donnybrook graveyard, and was also dedicated to St Mary; its wall divides the graveyard from the Garda station in the village. By the 1840s it was judged too small for the growing Catholic population, recorded in the Census of 1831 at about 8,000 people.

Monsignor Andrew O'Connell, appointed to the combined parishes of Donnybrook, Irishtown, Ringsend and Sandymount, began a building campaign in 1849 and acquired a site on the right bank of the River Dodder facing the old Fair Green. Work began in 1860 and the foundation stone was laid on 12 June 1863 by Archbishop Paul Cullen. The original architect was Patrick Byrne, who resigned through ill health in 1863, after which the Dublin firm of Pugin and Ashlin took over; the builder was Michael Meade. The church cost approximately £7,000 and opened on 26 August 1866, the date on which the Donnybrook Fair normally began.

A meeting held in 1912 to raise funds for the completion of the church decided on a tower in place of the spire of the original design, and it was completed at a cost of £1,200. In 1915 Monsignor Dunne took over the parish building debt of £3,000, which was cleared by subscription and the proceeds of a bazaar, and part of the surplus was used to install electric light as a memorial to his predecessor, Canon Gossan. The church was consecrated in 1923.

The building

The church is built of granite with Bath stone dressings, and measures 148 feet in length and 58 feet in width internally. The aisles are separated from the nave by an arcade of six arches resting on polished Cork marble shafts with carved Caen stone capitals. A rose window fills the west gable.

Notable features

The stained glass includes windows of St Malachi and St Bernard by Harry Clarke and of St Patrick, St Eithne and St Feidhlim by Michael Healy. The Stations of the Cross were presented in 1887 by a Mrs Jury of Greenfield, and the high altar by Catherine Dignam in memory of her husband. The Altar of Our Lady was the gift of William McDermott Fitzgibbon, the windows over the Sacred Heart statue were given by John R. Corballis of Roebuck, and those of St Rita and St Bernard by the Egan and Martin families.

A stone cross found in the old Donnybrook graveyard when the road was widened was consecrated on 19 July 1923 by Edward J. Byrne, Archbishop of Dublin. It is thought to have come from the earlier church, and in 1936 it was set on top of a wall of an extension to the church designed by W. H. Byrne and Sons.